Mineral Nutrition Facts

Why Minerals for good health and nutrition? They assist with metabolism and body function. The major minerals required by the body are calcium, chloride, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, sodium, and sulfur. Important trace minerals include copper, fluoride, iodine, iron, selenium, and zinc.

Here's how they help:

Calcium: Builds and maintains bone strength, which prevents stress fractures. Builds and maintains teeth, Regulates and relaxes heart function, Assists in muscle growth and contraction. Induces sound sleep.

Iodine: Controls metabolism. Needed for proper thyroid, brain, and nerve function.

Iron: Along with protein, helps form hemoglobin, which carries oxygen from the lungs through the blood to the body tissues, which includes the muscles.

Magnesium: Aids in the body's energy production, Combats stress. Assists in bone growth. Helps regulate body temperature. Helps the metabolism of vitamin C and other minerals.

Phosphorus: Helps in almost every chemical reaction in the body, assists in the use of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins for energy. Stimulates heart and muscle contractions. Prevents tooth decay.

Potassium: Aids in the conversion of glucose to glycogen. Nourishes the muscles. Stimulates the kidney to get rid of body wastes - balances body fluids. Calms the nerves.

Selenium: Powerful antioxidant. Boosts your immune system and helps protect your body from cancer.

Sodium: Protects nerves. With water, helps retain fluids that counteract dehydration. Helps our bodies produce a thirst sensation so we'll drink more fluids.

Zinc: Helps remove carbon dioxide from exercising muscles. Aids in healing. Boost the immune system. Protects against pollution.


Often may vitamin supplements include minerals as well. To maintain a healthy, holistic lifestyle, make sure your diet contains these key nutrients or add them with nutritional supplements.

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Weight Loss Caution

When establishing a goal for weight loss, people sometimes really don't take the time to really analyze what is really entailed. To be sure, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Fad diets, starvation... these are the wrong ways to go about weight loss and can really do more harm than good. The ultimate goal for weight loss is to lose fat.

For example, if you do not incorporate strength or weight training, you lose muscle mass. This ultimately leads to weight gain due to a slower metabolism. Lack of exercise can also cause loss of bone mass. While this would result in a loss of weight, your overall health would decline due to a weakened skeletal structure.

When you starve yourself, in addition to not having the necessary calories for optimal body function, you lose water weight. This is due to the burn off of glycogen. But this is only a false positive. This loss of glycogen makes you overeat to replace it, which restores the perceived weight loss and you are back to where you started. Or worse still, you've gained more weight by over-eating.

Be targeted and specific in your weight loss and exercise program. Do it the right way, the holistic way, through proper diet and exercise. Have fat loss as your goal, not just weight loss.

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Weight Training for Fat Loss

To provide permanent weight loss, you need to incorporate weight training into your exercise routine. Building or adding lean muscle mass increases your metabolism and burns excess calories. These extra muscles burn fat and calories each day even when you are resting.

Studies have shown that if you just add an extra ten pounds of muscle tissue, you will lose an average of an extra two pounds of fat per month even without making any other changes.

Conversely, if your diet and weight loss plan does not include weight training, then the weight you lose will be from loss of muscle tissue. This will slow down your metabolism and cause you to regain the weight you had lost, plus gain back even more. This is due to your body storing fat as it thinks you are starving. The body's natural impulse is self-preservation and it will fight against what it thinks is harm such as perceived starvation.

Recommendation: To accelerate your weight loss goal, include at least 3 days of strength training with weights into your weekly exercise program. For even more dramatic results, strength train every other day and practice holistic nutrition daily for permanent weight loss.

For additional information about alternative medicine and other nutrition facts:

Herbal Nutrition Systems

To learn how to optimize nutrition and learn about holistic health:

SC Certified Natural Health Professionals : http://www.sc-cnhp.org

For high quality, all-natural, herbal nutritional supplements:

http://www.herbsexpress.com

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